Dad Designs

Graphic advice and perspectives for the dad-to-be has just been released  via Ideo's Designs on Birth, from "an international, web-based community for designers and design enthusiasts." One can, of course stick to a traditional source, like Parenting Mag's take on the advice for new pops thing: "...it can be hard to connect with a being you can't see, feel or touch, but you can still do things that matter, from putting money aside for a college education to learning how to change a diaper..."

More amusing, however, is the Ideo-posted, Ikea-like instruction sheet

And for a better sensory experience of what will be coming with the labor, there is also the documentary-like video advisory:


Men in Labour from IDEO on Vimeo.

Father's Way

This week's objet d' eBay, the July 1973 Sports Illustrated celebrating football coach George Allen with its "Play It My Way" tag line, precedes by decades Allen's son's attempt to resuscitate his own career using his dad's football success.

Young Allen — George Felix, to distinguish him from father George Herbert — rode his dad's reputation to the Virginia senate seat. Then came the "macaca" meltdown. Now, just like daddy would have advised, he's back to the play that worked for him so often before as he sets himself up for his next political run with a book tour promoting What Washington Can Learn from the World of Sports.

Politics. Sports. Play it just like dad.

Bath Time Redux

How far dad's have come.

This week's objet d'eBay, is a Life Magazine whose cover line is "Bath for Dad's Day." The 1947 magazine celebrated a time when (at least in the public imagination) everyone did something special to make that one day extra perfect for fathers.

Showing the "progress" since then, Life today is an archive of photos that get produced into books — such as the just-released Life with Father — much more than a news chronicler. And kids no longer take baths for their fathers on "his" special day, but instead put together their pennies to send dads off to baths (and spas) on their own.

Measure of Success

Wired's Geek Dad turned two, with contests and reflections celebrating the paternally and technologically obsessed. What it doesn't do, however, is answer the question of what it means for the child (in general terms) to have a dad who is mechanically minded.

Could technological interests or abilities shadow a child in the same way being a Beatle could? And in exchange, to be fair, how far can a child knock you off your mechanical game, because no matter what he thinks, Roger Federer will have quite the adjustment to his tennis game after baby Fed arrives.

Do the GDs have a tool to accurately measure that?

Powell Loses Out to Dylan

Somehow, a married dad morphs into Bob Dylan's Thin Man. No matter where you go, "you know something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

The latest evidence that a dad's sex consumption, for example, has become something sad for other people to consider comes from the Philippines, where the soon-to-be launched, no frontal-nudity Playboy will be marketed as a "dad's" (not lad's) mag. Playboy's Philippines' editor, father-of-four Beting Laygo Dolor, wants something he can show his mother — dads will be attracted by the articles ... and some semi-nude women.

It's Dylan's:

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"

And your payoff, maybe, comes after your dead when your son hires a stripper to perform at your funeral.

Dylan's resume includes six children from two marriages (and, given the various confusions in his life maybe some others), including Jesse Byron , Anna Lea, Samuel Isaac Abraham, Jakob Luke, (step-daughter) Maria Lownds Dylan, and, from his second marriage, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan.

Fathers may imagine themselves the William Powell Thin Man (although Powell is not actually Dashiell Hammett's "Thin Man")



but the facts are kids turn you into Dylan's instead.

** The dad you see in the mirror isn't the man other's see on the street. **

Bunny Bopping

This week's objet d'eBay is a reminder of a more sane time. Father of two, but divorced, Hugh Hefner — as noted — was Playboy's No. 1 Playboy. And he was responsible.

Now, two divorces and two children later, the 81-year-old Hef is rumored to be setting up a disastrous future power struggle. Girlfriend (1) Holly Madison, 27, wants a baby and apparently she wants it to be his ... sort of a granddaughter-like thing for HH's oldest daughter Christine, 55, who took over the running of the business hutch from dad and got the bunny hopping again. He gets to pic Playmate of the Month, she gets to select where the business is going.

** Truly, in some ways dads never do grow beyond being teenage boys. **